Communism: Persuade Me

[The Kangaroo Republic]

Communism, it has Vodka.

There, you're communist now.

[Staenwald]

While that might have been true for large interconnected groups, in the past - it's never been true for small groups, and it's no longer true for large groups. Technology has finally reached a level where efficient resource distribution is entirely possible.

Not true, market distribution is just as much more efficient than central planning in small groups as well as it is in large, it's simply less necessary as the weaknesses of central planning are less obvious. Consider the end of a childhood Halloween trick or treating, you and your friends would or at least in my case we did, set about all of our candy at the end of the night, and trade it with each other. Despite being only about five participants it's clear that this is a much more efficient and fair system then if we simply gave them all to one central authority (let's call it MOM) and she provided us with exactly with exactly equal shares of all the candy subject to the pull of our whinging for more Butterfingers than Jimmy because we love Butterfingers.

The only reason market systems tend not to be used in small groups is generally because of either reciprocal altruism in which case the market system is merely disguised, the trade of gifts being a method to strengthen relationships, it is a trade of gifts for friendship or because most parties do not have any means to produce or operate in the market. I.E. in a family, where children have no method of producing something of market value to their parents and have an almost impossible to overcome asymmetry of information. As well as the obvious moral implications of making your friends trade you favours. Central planning puts a happy face on it all, so that even being glaringly inefficient it seems more fair. The same as it is for large scale, it's just the inefficiencies in a friendship generally are overlooked.

But as in the above scenario, when you do use market distribution in small groups it does become more efficient, it just comes at an apparent moral hazard. So it's avoided.

[Staenwald]

Not true, market distribution is just as much more efficient than central planning in small groups as well as it is in large, it's simply less necessary as the weaknesses of central planning are less obvious. Consider the end of a childhood Halloween trick or treating, you and your friends would or at least in my case we did, set about all of our candy at the end of the night, and trade it with each other. Despite being only about five participants it's clear that this is a much more efficient and fair system then if we simply gave them all to one central authority (let's call it MOM) and she provided us with exactly with exactly equal shares of all the candy subject to the pull of our whinging for more Butterfingers than Jimmy because we love Butterfingers.

The only reason market systems tend not to be used in small groups is generally because of either reciprocal altruism in which case the market system is merely disguised, the trade of gifts being a method to strengthen relationships, it is a trade of gifts for friendship or because most parties do not have any means to produce or operate in the market. I.E. in a family, where children have no method of producing something of market value to their parents and have an almost impossible to overcome asymmetry of information. As well as the obvious moral implications of making your friends trade you favours. Central planning puts a happy face on it all, so that even being glaringly inefficient it seems more fair. The same as it is for large scale, it's just the inefficiencies in a friendship generally are overlooked.

But as in the above scenario, when you do use market distribution in small groups it does become more efficient, it just comes at an apparent moral hazard. So it's avoided.

capitalists of the world unite!...ahem...TMP, check out my pics in your art thread, i want you to see

[Staenwald]

Communism, it has Vodka.

There, you're communist now.

communists wouldn't go to the effort of triple distilling and filtering 10 times....a purer vodka is a better vodka.

[The Merchant Republics]

And again with the USSR? I still fail to see the relevance. The USSR was not, as you say, a "central planning failure," as the central plan was to give all the wealth and power to an aristocracy, which is what happened. So it was a "central planning success" within an unstable autocracy.

False.

Even the Nomenklature was inefficiently provided for, they just made up for it by stealing it from other people.

There were whole glaring miscalculations in Soviet central planning, steel was sent to the wrong factory on the wrong day in the wrong amount, two-ton refrigerators produced that would never be sold, cars without engines, too much food in a village, too little in a city.

It wasn't as if it the state was desperately trying to kill it's people, it failed to provide for anyone adequately and the aristocrats just used their pull to get things moving to them faster. There needs were also often subject to failure, their food still came days late, they just had their mooks run out and rough up the food from places that did have things at the right time.

[The Merchant Republics]

capitalists of the world unite!...ahem...TMR, check out my pics in your art thread, i want you to see

I already saw them, they're fantastic, I didn't comment because I was too jealous

Really I mean it. Though the thing is I never have time to paint or do good work, I only can only concentrate enough to doodle in class.

Right thread jack sorry.

[Staenwald]

capitalists of the world unite!...ahem...TMR, check out my pics in your art thread, i want you to see

I already saw them, they're fantastic, I didn't comment because I was too jealous

Really I mean it. Though the thing is I never have time to paint or do good work, I only can only concentrate enough to doodle in class.

Right thread jack sorry.

haha. cheers mate. i have 7 pieces to do for the 4th of may. And communism still sucks foetus....which im painting.

[Sibirsky]

cars without engines

This part reminds me of how you went about buying a car once your turn came up (usually it took 7-10 years). You go and pick a car. Then you bribe the employee there to let you start putting it together since they never worked. An alternator from this one. A battery from that one. A master cylinder from a third.

[The Merchant Republics]

cars without engines

This part reminds me of how you went about buying a car once your turn came up (usually it took 7-10 years). You go and pick a car. Then you bribe the employee there to let you start putting it together since they never worked. An alternator from this one. A battery from that one. A master cylinder from a third.

And of course Soviet Cars weren't much when they did work for that matter; another problem with central planning. A single firm producing all cars will never be able to explore all the alternatives to innovate technologically they that many producers do, so they will always lag in small-scale innovation.

[Trotskyist Hashtag]

Ok but in all honesty the mindless search for technological innovation and industrial products is what led to this erm, climate crisis. Under capitalism, we have to wait until firms decide it's profitable to adapt environmentally friendly and efficient technology while in a socialist society the masses should be able to demand the adoption of these technologies through the government.

[Terra Agora]

Ok but in all honesty the mindless search for technological innovation and industrial products is what led to this erm, climate crisis. Under capitalism, we have to wait until firms decide it's profitable to adapt environmentally friendly and efficient technology while in a socialist society the masses should be able to demand the adoption of these technologies through the government.

[Trotskyist Hashtag]

I facepalm every time I see a hummer.

[Terra Agora]

Like I could afford a hummer

[A sack of potatoes]

Ok but in all honesty the mindless search for technological innovation and industrial products is what led to this erm, climate crisis. Under capitalism, we have to wait until firms decide it's profitable to adapt environmentally friendly and efficient technology while in a socialist society the masses should be able to demand the adoption of these technologies through the government.

If there is demand for it, it's profitable.

[Trotskyist Hashtag]

No. Because efficient technology costs more than coal and oil. That's why the republicans deny global warming.

[Vetalia]

And of course Soviet Cars weren't much when they did work for that matter; another problem with central planning. A single firm producing all cars will never be able to explore all the alternatives to innovate technologically they that many producers do, so they will always lag in small-scale innovation.

Well, technically there were multiple firms...

That being said, Soviet cars were great provided you were privileged enough to get a Chaika or ZIL.

[Bataloqr]

In response to your answer, how do you manage scarcity and decide who gets which resource and of what amounts, when the only way it appears to do it is to assess everyone's claims to these resources. That's a classic ' From each according to his ability, to each according to his need'...this does not work.

The central plan claim thing is bullshit.

I dissagree. I have yet to see a case where Marx' priniples are implemented, and the nation fails.

In the USSR, they claimed to be communist, but what was actually excersised was more along the lines of "From each according to action, to each according to what he can get away with." This was the classically observed weakness of every civilization since the beginning of history.

Communism is an expansion of early Tribal societies where those that can work help those that cannot work in the hopes that should the former find himself unable, others will be willing to help him.

Tell me, when no one is going hungry, who is left to be unhappy? That is the real nature of Communism. What you are demonstrating is a straw-man representetive of what you think communism should be. But when you actually have some idea what Communism really is, you realize, it's not so much a governing strategy as it is an incredibly accurate Social Scientific Theory (similar to how T. of Evolution and T. of Gravity are Natural Scientific Theories).

[Scocialist Provinces]

Communism, it has Vodka.

There, you're communist now.

Hell fucking yessssssss!

[Sibirsky]

This part reminds me of how you went about buying a car once your turn came up (usually it took 7-10 years). You go and pick a car. Then you bribe the employee there to let you start putting it together since they never worked. An alternator from this one. A battery from that one. A master cylinder from a third.

And of course Soviet Cars weren't much when they did work for that matter; another problem with central planning. A single firm producing all cars will never be able to explore all the alternatives to innovate technologically they that many producers do, so they will always lag in small-scale innovation.

They were crap. Absolute garbage. There were several different factories producing them, but they were not in direct competition with each other, so made the same basic model for decades with only minor changes.

[Sibirsky]

And of course Soviet Cars weren't much when they did work for that matter; another problem with central planning. A single firm producing all cars will never be able to explore all the alternatives to innovate technologically they that many producers do, so they will always lag in small-scale innovation.

Well, technically there were multiple firms...

That being said, Soviet cars were great provided you were privileged enough to get a Chaika or ZIL.

Both the Chaika and ZIL, while much better than commoner cars, where still garbage.

[Hydesland]

Did you see the Top Gear episode on soviet cars?

[Asterdan]

Let's say Tom and Frank are both engineers:

Frank works his butt off, doing practically everything. His partner Tom does the least amount of work possible. Then they get paid the same. Isn't that a shame?

Now, with Capitalism, Frank is rewarded for working his butt off, and Tom... well... he faces the consequences...

Then again.. Communism has a cool symbol....

[Australien]

Let's say Tom and Frank are both engineers:

Frank works his butt off, doing practically everything. His partner Tom does the least amount of work possible. Then they get paid the same. Isn't that a shame?

Now, with Capitalism, Frank is rewarded for working his butt off, and Tom... well... he faces the consequences...

Then again.. Communism has a cool symbol....

I love opinions founding on nonsense!

[Genivaria]

Ok but in all honesty the mindless search for technological innovation and industrial products is what led to this erm, climate crisis. Under capitalism, we have to wait until firms decide it's profitable to adapt environmentally friendly and efficient technology while in a socialist society the masses should be able to demand the adoption of these technologies through the government.

I don't think you understand how it works.
Technology comes about two ways, either through a company trying to get an edge over its competitors.
Or a country trying to do the same, one uses part of their profit, while the other uses tax payer dollars.
You can't just *demand* new technologies into being.

[Bluth Corporation]

It's really frustrating to see supposed anti-Marxists (BIG distinction between Marxism and other schools of communist thought) attack (not to mention supposed Marxists support) lines of thought that bear no relation to the current "cutting-edge," so to speak, of the various major interpretations of Marxism.

As an Objectivist, I'm pretty insistent that when people argue against Objectivism, they realize that Objectivism is defined by what Objectivists believe and not by what they think Objectivism is, and so that they argue against what Objectivists actually believe than against strawman Objectivism.

It seems reasonable that Marxist Communists are entitled to have the same degree of intellectual honesty employed in arguments against their ideas.

For a good overview of what a typical modern-day Marxist (an actual, committed Marxist as opposed to a dilettante) might actually believe (which is quite different from what some people seem to be insisting), might I suggest Bob Avakian's Phony Communism is Dead...Long Live Real Communism!?